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Ben Carson recasts role of Saudi Arabia in hunt for Osama bin Laden
Source: The Guardian
Ben Carson recasts role of Saudi Arabia in hunt for Osama bin Laden
Tom McCarthy in New York
Sunday 18 October 2015 17.27 BST
The Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Sunday upended a widely accepted narrative of the hunt for Osama bin Laden that followed the 11 September 2001 attacks, suggesting US ally Saudi Arabia cultivated secret ties with the terrorist leader and knew where he was after the attacks.
The comments, made in an interview on ABC News, seemed to implicate the erstwhile US ally in Bin Laden’s success at evading US attempts to kill or capture him for a decade after 9/11.
Carson’s remarks came as the 2001 attacks returned to the headlines, as a spat between two other candidates, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump, continued over remarks Trump made about Bush’s brother, President George W Bush, and culpability for the hijacking of the planes that crashed in New York, Washington and a field in Pennsylvania.
At the second Republican presidential debate, in California last month, Carson said that if George W Bush had announced a plan to end reliance on Persian Gulf oil “within five to 10 years ... moderate Arab states” spurred by the threat of the loss of a key market “would have turned over Osama bin Laden and anybody else you wanted on a silver platter in two weeks”.
Pressed by ABC News host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Carson stood by the assertion.
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Tom McCarthy in New York
Sunday 18 October 2015 17.27 BST
The Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Sunday upended a widely accepted narrative of the hunt for Osama bin Laden that followed the 11 September 2001 attacks, suggesting US ally Saudi Arabia cultivated secret ties with the terrorist leader and knew where he was after the attacks.
The comments, made in an interview on ABC News, seemed to implicate the erstwhile US ally in Bin Laden’s success at evading US attempts to kill or capture him for a decade after 9/11.
Carson’s remarks came as the 2001 attacks returned to the headlines, as a spat between two other candidates, Jeb Bush and Donald Trump, continued over remarks Trump made about Bush’s brother, President George W Bush, and culpability for the hijacking of the planes that crashed in New York, Washington and a field in Pennsylvania.
At the second Republican presidential debate, in California last month, Carson said that if George W Bush had announced a plan to end reliance on Persian Gulf oil “within five to 10 years ... moderate Arab states” spurred by the threat of the loss of a key market “would have turned over Osama bin Laden and anybody else you wanted on a silver platter in two weeks”.
Pressed by ABC News host George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Carson stood by the assertion.
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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/18/ben-carson-saudi-arabia-osama-bin-laden-whereabouts
